


Mr. Roboto

by RiverTam



Series: Mr. Roboto [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Accidentally kicking your spouse in the bollocks because you think he's a Skrull, Aphasia, Automated Book Retrieval System, Brock's a monster and he knows it clap your hands, F/M, Gen, HYDRA Husbands, Headaches, Jack Rollins has powers, M/M, Memories returning over time, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Retrograde Amnesia, Reunions, Second Chances, Starting Over, Traumatic Brain Injury, Witness Protection, going back to college, migraines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:27:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24578272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiverTam/pseuds/RiverTam
Summary: 12 January 2014HYDRA comes out of the shadows and into the light.  Sleeper agents are activated worldwide.Project Insight is thwarted, and the underworld of spycraft and espionage is thrown into the open for the whole world to see.Lieutenant Commander Jack Rollins and his head have a violent disagreement with a conference room table, courtesy of Natasha Romanoff.18 January 2014A man wakes up in a hospital with no memory of how he got there.
Relationships: Jack Rollins & Original Female Character, Jack Rollins &" Sam Wilson, Jack Rollins/Brock Rumlow
Series: Mr. Roboto [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1792483
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:**
> 
>   * Use of prescription medications, not entirely knowing what those medications are for, and running into some unpleasant surprises with said medications. There’s no drug abuse, just misunderstandings of what the medications are actually supposed to treat.
>   * Retrograde amnesia and mild body dysmorphia as a consequence.
>   * Implied/referenced torture, no details
>   * Migraines and headaches
> 

> 
> **Things that inspired this fic:**
> 
>   * <https://cloakedsparrow.tumblr.com/post/133758072810/there-are-some-prevailing-fandom-theories-on-brock>
>   * <https://grilloed.tumblr.com/post/119054189597/lets-talk-about-brock-rumlow/amp>
>   * <https://panut0.tumblr.com/image/91545191251>
> 


It’s the quiet, rhythmic beeping that ends up pulling him into wakefulness. Something in his head tells him not to open his eyes, though, so he stays still and listens to the world around him for several minutes.

Heart monitor. Pressure around the tip of his right index finger. Soft, warm clothes and blankets. No one else in the room moving or breathing. Faint chemical smell: antiseptic. Muffled noise from outside the room; a cart rolls past, and voices fade away with the sound of the wheels on tile.

Hospital.

He tries to lift his hand, and something tugs at his wrist. A twist of his hand tells him there’s a padded cuff fastened around it, and pulling it towards him makes it pretty clear he’s strapped down to rails on either side of the bed. The other wrist and both ankles get the same result. He can’t help the slight spike in his heart rate, revealed in faster beeps from the monitor to his left.

He opens his eyes when the door latch clicks, just in time to see a tall, broad-shouldered, blond-haired man in a military uniform step through. The nameplate above the man’s right breast pocket spells out ROGERS, and captain’s bars decorate his shoulders. Rogers looks at him, grits his teeth, and looks away.

“You’re awake,” Rogers says, and it’s not clear whether he’s happy about it or not.

“Guess so.” He swallows; his throat is dry and his voice feels rough and rusty.

Standing at the end of the hospital bed, Rogers crosses his arms and looks at the blankets. “Congress is raising hell right now, trying to get you and what’s left of your men sent to the Raft. I have more than half a mind to let them.”

His men? Congress? _Raft_ sends a chill through him that he doesn’t have the context to understand. He makes a confused, quiet noise; Rogers looks up at him in concern.

“How much do you remember?”

There’s an alarmingly blank space where he’s pretty sure his memory should be. The confusion and panic must show on his face, because Rogers’ expression softens.

“Do you remember anything?”

His eyes start to burn as he shakes his head.

Rogers wraps his hands around the rail at the end of the bed and leans on it. “You had a severe concussion about a week ago, and they’ve been keeping you sedated since Search and Rescue found you. The neurologist that checked you out said memory loss was a possibility.”

Oh. “Is it permanent?”

Rogers looks up at him with an odd look, almost pained. “We don’t know yet.”

He looks up at the ceiling as it blurs, and swallows. “Why am I restrained?”

“There was… a fight.”

That still draws a blank, and he shakes his head a little.

“Give it some time,” Rogers says quietly. “You’ll get a lawyer and a trial by jury. Hospital won’t release you to the feds until you’re healed up enough.” There’s an awkward pause, then Rogers turns to leave. Before he opens the door, he pauses and takes a breath. “For what it’s worth, it’s good to see you, Jack.”

Jack. That must be his name. He swallows again and closes his eyes. The door clicks shut behind Rogers, and he’s left alone.

  
  


The next week is a flurry of doctors, exams, staring at the pockmarked ceiling tiles to find the repeating pattern, splitting headaches, nausea, and medications.

He tries to ask the doctors what each pill and injection is for, but his tongue feels heavy in his mouth and he can’t focus on the words long enough to string them together.

  
  


Week two sees him transferred to a ~~prison~~ detainment facility, where he’s given his own private room and only allowed to talk to his lawyer and his psychologist. The headaches continue even if the fuzziness starts to fade, and Jack can’t help but feel a yawning chasm inside his head where… something is supposed to be.

  
  


The armchair in the psychologist’s office is comfortable, thankfully. Even though he’s been ‘impressively nonviolent’ during his stay at the detainment facility, they apparently think he’s still enough of a threat to warrant restraints. Jack picks apart the patterns in the worn carpet with his eyes rather than look up at the petite woman sitting across from him.

“How’s your head today, Jack?”

It’s taken them a few sessions, but she’s finally stopped referring to him by his rank.

“Had another headache,” he admits, voice quiet and rough, fingertips plucking at the fraying seam on the armrest of his chair. “Another dream. Soldiers without faces. One of them had black hair.”

“Any memories?” Her eyes flick down to the edges of the intricate white tattoos peeking out from under his shirtsleeves.

Jack shakes his head without looking up at her. Even if he did remember why his body is covered in markings from his neck to his wrists and ankles, something tells him he should keep it a secret. And he knows the psychologist doesn’t have the skill or temperament to convince him to talk.

Phantom pains ripple through Jack’s shoulders, the afterimages of electric shocks. His neck stiffens and he shudders, turning his head to the side as he closes his eyes.

“Jack?”

He takes a deep breath in through his nose, then exhales. Once he’s able to push the sensations away enough to focus again, he forces his shoulders to relax. Maybe if he can just keep breathing, the ache at the base of his skull won’t spread. “File says I was some sort of soldier, right?”

The psychologist tilts her head. “You tell me.”

“Why else would I know what torture feels like?” he grits out before a migraine slams into him with the force of a freight train.

  
  


He wakes up on his side on a bed in the sick bay, wrists secured to the rail in front of him. The doctor sitting at his desk on the other side of the room glances up when Jack groans.

“Welcome back,” the doctor says as he sets his crosswords down, stands and walks over. “Scale of one to-”

“Six.” Jack endures the searing pain of the penlight flashing over his eyes and tries not to flinch away from cold latex gloves against his pulse point. He closes his eyes and sighs. “Not sure which direction gravity’s pulling in, though.”

“Wish I had something that could help, man.” A gentle pat on the shoulder is followed by footsteps back across the room, then a rustle of paper as the doctor picks up the puzzle book. “Seven letters, ‘Left a military formation.’ First one’s an F.”

“Fell out,” Jack rasps, and presses his aching forehead to his upper arm. A soldier, indeed. He’s not sure he wants to know what kind, given the few fragments he has.

  
  


The other ~~inmates~~ detainees turn to look at him the first time he’s escorted out to the exercise yard. The sunlight makes his head pound as he squints, bringing one hand up to shield his eyes while the other dangles from the other end of his handcuffs. It’s decidedly brisk outside and he knows if he doesn’t get his heart rate up soon, he’s going to be shivering in the late February air.

Jack nods towards one of the empty treadmills and walks over with a guard at his side. He sits down at the nearby bench, takes the running shoes he’s given, and swaps them out for the canvas slip-ons he was issued with his uniform. A quick glance up and a shake of the wrist has him sigh as he’s told the cuffs are staying on.

It’s not too difficult to figure out how the settings work on the treadmill, and he’s soon jogging at a decent pace. The chain between his wrists jangles quietly with each step, but it’s nice to be able to move again. As his heart rate rises, his head clears, and the world narrows down to the track under his feet, the display in front of him, and the sound of his own breathing.

  
  


The tablets in the little white paper cup rattle quietly as Jack takes his prescriptions from the doctor. He takes the glass of water in his other hand, downs the pills, and lets the doctor check his mouth to make sure he didn’t stuff any of them in his cheeks.

Once that’s done, he’s handed a cafeteria tray and shuffled on down the line.

“That’s a lot of pills,” the guy behind him comments as they’re handed bowls of oatmeal.

Jack’s eyes ache in the flat fluorescent light in the cafeteria. He can’t rub his forehead and keep his hands on his tray at the same time. “Just wish they helped more.”

  
  


Fifteen days after he’s transferred into the detainment facility, heavy-booted footsteps echo down the hall, drawing closer to his cell. Jack looks up from the book he’s reading as his lawyer walks into view with four heavily armed military police officers.

Closing his book slowly, Jack watches the warden unlock the cell door.

“Time for your trial, Jack,” his lawyer tells him with something that might be a smile.

Jack looks between the MPs and raises an eyebrow. “Are the guns really necessary?” He knows the main purpose of the riot helmets, giant goddamn rifles, and black uniform from head to toe is intimidation, but it doesn’t seem to be working on him.

“Standard protocol.” The warden walks in and nudges Jack’s shoulder. “On your feet, Rollins.”

He sets his book down on the cot and stands, then has to slap a hand against the wall to catch himself as the world twists around him. Dizzying deja vu helpfully provides him with eight ways to kill each of the grunts and the warden before he even gets his hands on a weapon. Breathing through it, Jack shakes his head to dislodge the sensation. “Sorry. Stood up too fast.”

Once he’s steady on his feet, he holds his hands out, trying hard to ignore the red, chafed skin where the handcuffs rub against his wrist bones.

The jeering of the other detainees is equally hard to ignore as the MPs walk him out and load him into the back of a van.

  
  


The judge introduces him to his jury as Lieutenant Commander Jonathan Andrew Rollins of SHIELD’s STRIKE Division, Alpha platoon. He sits, allows the bailiff to chain him to the fucking table, and settles in as best he can.

Admittedly, Jack tunes out for most of the trial, just sort of staring off into space, until he’s called up to the stand on the second day.

“So,” his lawyer asks him once all the formalities and restraints are dealt with. “What _do_ you remember?”

Jack fixes the lawyer with tired, aching eyes. “Procedural things. Some semantic memory. I can tell you the capitals of most countries in the world and the primary languages spoken there, but I can’t tell you what I had for breakfast the day of my injury.”

“Anything before that?”

Looking down at his hands, Jack swallows; his throat clicks. He’s tempted to ask for some water. “Enough to know I’m not sure I want to remember anything else.”

  
  


The prosecutor paints a picture of Lt. Commander Rollins as an expert soldier, remorseless killer, and double agent embedded deep within the ranks of SHIELD. He flatly reads off Jack’s combat record with the intent to shock the jury.

Jack idly wonders how the man got a hold of something that he’s pretty sure should be so heavily classified that its clearance level is classified. Then, he wonders why there’s so many foreign names on the confirmed kill list. One name has several jurors turn to stare at him; Jack just looks at the plastic wood-grain veneer on the table his arms are resting on, and traces it with his eyes.

  
  


A thin young woman around Jack’s age takes the stand and introduces herself as Jack’s sister.

The rest of the trial is lost in the dull roar inside of Jack’s head. He puts his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. It’s not until the lawyer taps his shoulder to get his attention that he realizes the trial is over.

  
  


It’s after the sun’s gone down on day three by the time he walks out of the courthouse in slacks and a collared shirt, and it feels strange to be able to pull on the coat he’s handed without handcuffs getting in the way. The cold air aches wonderfully in his lungs as he tips his head back and looks up at the stars just starting to peek through the cloud cover.

“Come on,” the agent assigned to him says, more gently than Jack expects. “Let’s get you someplace to stay for the night.”

Jack catches himself rubbing his wrists multiple times during the car ride, trying to ease the chafing from the past month of being a prisoner in both body and mind. He watches the buildings slide by as they head toward the outskirts of the city.

“What convinced them?” he rasps finally as they roll past a gas station full of exhausted commuters. “I should be behind bars for the rest of my life and we both know it.”

The agent hums and flicks the blinker over as they pull into a turn lane. “Turns out, HYDRA’s been brainwashing their agents. Captain Rogers came forward with some documentation of how hard they had to work on you to get it to hold.”

Jack’s not sure if that makes him feel better or worse, even if he’s been told Rogers is one of the good guys. He drags a hand over his face and rubs at his eyes. “Explains why my brain feels like mashed potatoes.”

“That’d be the concussion, sir.”

Tipping his head back against the headrest, Jack sighs. “I’m a civilian, now.”

“You’re also the guy who led the team that pulled _my_ team out of a FUBAR in Chile. Sure, we have to draw the line somewhere, but people who have never been in the field won’t ever understand the kind of decisions we have to make.”

He’s sure that’s supposed to be comforting, or at least commiserating. But all he feels right now is tired.

  
  


Fatigue pulls at his bones as he hefts a plain black duffel back onto his shoulder and follows the agent into a small motel room. The manila envelope containing his new identity and seed money is bulky and heavy in his hands; he sets it next to him on the bed, then puts his elbows on his knees and rubs his face.

_Release conditional on maintenance of regular appointments with assigned doctors, and self-administration of prescribed medications._

His attempts to look up the names of each of the four drugs they have him taking only gets him another headache, and he adds smartphone screens to the list of things that make his brain cry for mercy.

He endures it long enough to tap out the first four numbers that come to mind to set his passcode, then turns the damn thing off.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, Jack digs through the duffel until he finds some clothes to sleep in and heads for the bathroom. It’s cramped, the fan is noisy, and he’s pretty sure the smudges in the corners of the shower are mildew, but it’s a hell of a lot better than the industrial spigot walls he was herded through in detainment.

He braces his hands against the wall under the showerhead and lets his head fall forward, the scalding hot water rolling over his neck and shoulders. Knots of tension finally start to slip free, and Jack damn near falls asleep standing up twice before he shuts off the tap and stuffs his face in a towel.

It only takes one glance at the mirror for him to tear his eyes away and pointedly avoid looking at his own reflection.

He doesn’t need any more reminders of the soldier who used to inhabit his body.

The vending machine outside his motel room groans as it shits out dollar-a-pack snacks, and Jack does his best to make a meal out of them. He hardly has any appetite, but he chokes down a few bags of passably edible junk food before he can’t bear to look at it anymore.

After sliding between cold, scratchy sheets, Jack stares bleary-eyed at his new phone again. Someone probably thought they were trying to help by programming _Kayla Rollins_ into his contacts. But the way she’d looked at him in the courtroom, sickened and betrayed and relieved and heartbroken all at once… Jack ends up falling asleep without making the call.

She’s better off without him.


	2. Chapter 2

The morning after his release, Jack wakes up feeling like his whole body is covered in sand. It’s statistically likely he  _ has  _ been covered head to toe with sand before, but something still makes his skin crawl badly enough that he’s back in the shower for round two of scrubbing himself until his body is red and raw.

Standing in the bathroom with a towel around his waist and steam in the air, it takes Jack several heartbeats to work up the courage to look at himself in the mirror.

Hollow eyes surrounded by dark circles stare back at him out of a thin, scruffy face. A month’s worth of beard covers his cheeks and jaw, scruffy and ungroomed. The last remnants of bruising on his chest and ribs have faded into a barely-visible, mottled tan that’s difficult to see under the white markings covering his entire upper body.

Twisting around to look at his back, Jack swallows thickly when he sees a dizzying array of sigils, runes, and symbols covering the skin there, too. One particularly bold design traces up the length of his spine from his tailbone to the base of his neck, and the other markings are arranged in segments that resemble panels of armor too much for Jack’s liking.

He quickly pulls on a long sleeve shirt and some pants so that he doesn’t have to look at a body that doesn’t feel like his.

There’s a safety razor in the toiletries supplied by the motel, along with a small travel-size can of shaving cream. It takes longer than he wants to admit to shave without cutting himself or looking too closely at his own face, and his hands aren’t as steady as they really should be. When he’s done, he runs a hand over his face, cleans up a few spots, then wads up the towel he put over the sink to minimize the mess.

It’s both an immense relief and eerie beyond words that he still remembers how to do basic things like this, when he can’t remember the name of the high school he went to.

And when he finally drags his eyes back up to the mirror, it’s both surprising and not when he finds a long, jagged scar on his chin and jaw, snaking down from his lip. His fingertips and eyes trace it for a few seconds; the world twists uncertainly around him as muscle memory argues with amnesia. Jack has to put his hands flat on the bathroom counter for a few minutes as he breathes.

  
  


By the time another agent in hiking boots, Levis, a button-down shirt and a leather jacket knocks on his door to take him to his new apartment, Jack’s fairly sure he’s doing a better job of not looking homeless.

  
  


His head aches from the harsh sunlight by the time he gets to the new apartment complex, and the first thing he does is pull the blinds down and block off most of the natural light. It’s a stroke of luck someone was thoughtful enough to install dimmer switches for the overhead lights, and Jack makes good use of those while he looks around his new home.

It’s a studio apartment, one large room with a half-height wall dividing a sleeping space from a living space. A cheap folding screen with machine-painted Japanese-adjacent artwork rests on top of the wall for some semblance of privacy. The bed tucked into the alcove behind the wall is utilitarian, sturdy, and holds a thin but firm mattress; cotton bedsheets sit in their package on the corner.

The washer and dryer live in a closet off the open kitchen, and he’s not entirely sure why he’s so excited to see an electric kettle on the kitchen counter next to the stove. But as he walks toward it, something stops him dead in his tracks.

He blinks once, twice, then as if moving on automatic, starts methodically searching the entire apartment floor to ceiling for- something. It doesn’t take long, and he finds himself back in the kitchen staring at a small pile of tiny electronics in the palm of his hand.

Microphones. SHIELD bugged his apartment.

Swallowing, Jack looks around as if the kitchen appliances will give him any clues as to what to do with the devices. It’s not entirely surprising, given what he’s read about who he used to be, but… He sighs and shuffles into the bathroom, dumps them all in the toilet, and flushes.

Even if someone comes back to install new ones, at least he’s made his point. He tries not to think too hard about how he knows where to look for bugs.

Another manila envelope is waiting for him on the coffee table in front of the shit-brown couch. Sitting with a quiet groan, Jack scoops it up and tiredly leafs through the pamphlets telling him about VA meetings, job boards, local thrift stores, all the well-intentioned aid for a man starting over.

He puts all of that with the documents labeling him as Sean McKinley and sets it back on the coffee table to deal with later.

There’s enough cash in the wallet they gave him to  ~~ dispose of a body ~~ buy groceries for a few months, provided Jack can get himself some sort of income soon. But with his headaches, his amnesia, the fact that he just fucking  _ looks  _ dangerous, he’s not sure who in their right mind would hire him.

He’s a mess. He’s a mess and he can’t remember the name of his own mother.

  
  


All he has are fragments.

  
  


The first week on his own sees him relearn how to keep himself socially presentable, at least on the surface. The police are less likely to look at him if he doesn’t look homeless, after all.

  
  


The second week sees him keeping a chair warm in the back of a group session at the VA. The man running the meeting stares at Jack wide-eyed for several seconds before swallowing and turning to talk to someone else, and he doesn’t give Jack much more than the occasional cursory glance once the meeting’s under way.

Jack disappears before the group leader can approach him after the meeting. He doesn’t have any answers for the questions he knows he’ll be asked.

  
  


Week five sees him finally work up the nerve to introduce himself at one of the VA group sessions.

His cover name, Sean, is easier to say even if it still feels wrong. He's been taking odd jobs here and there, mostly helping people move from house to house. Craigslist is an invaluable resource, and it gets him out of the house and interacting with people. The other vets nod approvingly. But when he quietly tells the veterans that he doesn't remember who he is, his voice cracks and his eyes prickle.

He spends the rest of the meeting silent, arms wrapped around his stomach, staring at the scuffed linoleum. Sam- the leader's name is Sam, apparently- pulls him aside afterwards and hands him a business card.

"I don't wanna freak you out, but... you an' me, we got some history," Sam says, very quietly. "I wanna help you, though. You need anyone to talk to, you call this number, okay?"

There's a cell number - Harlem area code - handwritten on the business card in blocky shapes. Jack nods and thanks him, then just... leaves.

  
  


He doesn't come back for a few weeks.

When he does, though, he tries to give Sam a smile. It seems to work.

After that meeting, Sam just hands him a flyer for a job nearby and smiles at him, then walks away. He seems to have picked up that Jack doesn't like talking much.

  
  


Jack digs through the clothes he was given until he comes up with an outfit that looks at least somewhat civilian-professional, then takes a picture of himself in his bathroom mirror and sends it to Sam for a sanity check.

_ Lookin sharp man _ comes back minutes later, and Jack breathes a sigh of relief.

The bus ride is thankfully uneventful, and the job flyer even includes a helpful map. He takes a moment to breathe before he walks in, looking up at the huge university library with no small amount of anxiety.

Just inside the doors and off to the left is a little cafe with a short line of harried college students. One of the smoothie machines whirs to live and Jack reflexively winces, tilting his head away from the noise. Thankfully, the info desk is immediately in front of him; he walks up, smiles at the boy sitting at it, and holds out the flyer.

“One of the guys from the VA told me you’re hiring,” Jack says, and thanks whatever god is willing to look out for him that his voice comes out strong.

  
  


Turns out, his interview is more of a hands-on sort of experience. It’s less than ten minutes in, and Jack finds himself standing at the base of what looks like a filing cabinet and a Transformer bumped uglies a few times. He looks back down at the bright yellow robotic…  _ thing _ that’s sitting despondently at the bottom of its vertical track, one of its arms more extended than the other, a hydraulic piston clearly bent. One of the servomotors quietly twitches away, and the little buzzes sound almost mournful in the cool, controlled quietness of the storage bay.

“Well,” the library’s executive director says, a little too cheerfully, and smiles up at Jack. “Think you can fix it?”

He swallows, gives the robot a dubious look, then shrugs. “I can try.”

“Great! You’re hired.”

Jack blinks at her a few times, but she’s already leafing through a folder and pulling out sheets of paper for him to sign. He takes the pen and clipboard from her, nods when she says to bring the paperwork upstairs to her when he’s done looking around, and sits down next to the robot to figure out what he’s just got himself into.

  
  


No one at the library or the university it’s attached to cares that he’s quiet. No one cares that he can’t remember anything concrete earlier than late January. No one cares that he’s got a massive scar on his face and is jumpier than some of the standard-issue vets he keeps company twice a week. As long as the automated book retrieval system keeps working, his boss is happy and he gets his paychecks.

  
  


Since Jack's taken to running to keep himself fit, he's lost some of the whipcord tone in his muscles from when he was first captured. Or rescued. He's really not sure which, at this point. He has more nightmares about what he knows now is his former team than he does about the people who rehabilitated him.

He's also admitted defeat and started wearing glasses, which helps with several things including his headaches; there's no fucking way anyone in their right mind would have let such a nearsighted person be a sniper. Or a soldier of any variety. Maybe he wore contacts before? He can't even bring himself to think about it now. Just the mention of anything touching his eyes and he's running for the bathroom with a hand over his mouth.

So, his face is softer and less angular than the mug shot haunting him from the file in the safe in his closet, the glasses bring out the green in his eyes, and he's leaving his hair curly and loose rather than scrape it back with gel like he apparently used to. A sweatshirt emblazoned with the university's letters and jeans go a long way to mask what's left of his soldier's body; rather than a hulking wall of muscle, now he's just a tall guy.

It catches him by surprise the first time one of the students flirts with him while he’s filling in at the reference desk during lunch, less than a week after he’s started his new job.

He’s squinting in confusion at the ten numbers written on the slip of paper the girl left behind, trying to parse them into one of the catalog systems the library uses, when Ashely returns from her lunch break.

“Oh, someone gave you digits?”

Jack makes a confused noise.

“That’s a phone number, honey.” Ashley’s smile is both fond and amused. “You don’t have to text them, though. Not if you don’t want to.”

Laughing awkwardly, Jack leaves the phone number behind as he makes his way back to his little office next to the ARS access door. He’s turning the knob on the door when-

_ -leaning in the doorway, the corner of his mouth pulled up in a smile as he looks at the wiry man sprawled out facedown across the bed, fast asleep without a scrap of clothing on him, plain gold ring on his left hand glinting in the morning sunlight. A messy mop of black hair threatens to get stuck in cowlicks if he doesn’t wake up soon- _

-his hand slips off the knob and he whacks his knuckles hard on the steel door frame. Swearing under his breath, Jack shakes out his smarting hand and opens the door with his other. He gets inside his office, closes the door, then puts his back against and slides down to sit on the cold concrete.

Pushing his glasses up, Jack rubs at his eyes, then looks at his own left hand. The skin is smooth, unmarked; there’s no indication he ever used to wear anything there. He rubs the fingers of his right hand over where a wedding ring might sit, suddenly feeling very conflicted. His SHIELD file hadn’t said anything about a spouse, of any gender.

What else has he lost?

He spends a few minutes with his eyes closed and his head tipped back against the door, just breathing the way the prison psychologist taught him how. It takes him a few  _ more _ minutes of that as he realizes that it’s entirely possible he was someone’s husband’s plaything.

He’s not sure which would be worse: forgetting his own husband, or forgetting that he was a homewrecker.

Hands shaking slightly, Jack pulls out his phone and taps out a message to Sam.

_ Can you ask Rogers if he remembers me ever wearing a wedding ring? _

The typing dots appear and disappear several times below his message, until, finally:  _ Shit, man. _

Jack swallows and replies,  _ I know. _

He stares up at the ceiling while he waits, and looks back down at his phone when it buzzes in his hand.

_ He says yes. One of those silicone ones, black with a blue line on it.  _ And then he gets a picture of a quick sketch, courtesy of Captain Rogers and an unfortunate cafe napkin of Jack From Before sighting with a rifle, his finger on the trigger, and a ring on his hand.

Apparently he shot lefty.

Relief floods through Jack so quickly that it leaves him dizzy, and then his lungs catch on his next breath. Sam seems to know what’s happening, because his phone rings a moment later.

_ “You okay, man?”  _ Sam asks him, and Jack chokes out something that’s trying to be a laugh.

“No.” He swallows and drags his glasses off, then wipes his face with his free hand. “But at least I know I wasn’t someone’s side bitch now.”

_ “That’s… somethin’, yeah.” _

Jack sniffs wetly and takes a slow, deep breath.

_ “You gonna be okay to finish out your work day?” _

“I literally lurk in the concrete basement,” Jack says, and this time he actually manages to laugh even though his nose is getting stuffed up already. “One of the kids upstairs is running book pickup today. I’ll be fine.”

Once he’s off the phone, he just sits there for a few minutes until he’s breathing normally again. His knuckles are still aching a bit from where he accidentally punched the door, so Jack lurches up off the floor and grabs the bottle of Advil.

A cup of tea does a lot to steady his nerves after that, and Jack spends most of the afternoon completing the latest online training for the ARS from the manufacturer.

He doesn’t notice he’s been doodling idly in his notebook until after he’s passed the online test and made sure the certification shows up on his user profile. Objectively speaking, Jack knows he can draw. Every other page in all of his notebooks have a half-finished sketch of whatever caught his interest at the time. This is the first time he’s drawn something from memory, though.

He rubs a hand over the back of his neck as he looks at the four small portraits in the corner of the page. They’re all of the same angular face, lean and without any extra padding, a lopsided smile on one of them. Another sketch has the man wearing some sort of Bluetooth earpiece. He didn’t shade in the man’s hair, but… Jack’s pretty sure it’s supposed to be black.

Sighing, he taps his fingers under the sketches and chews his lip. Chances are, whoever this was, there’s a reason he hasn’t reached out or come looking for Jack.

Jack swallows thickly and turns to the next page in his notebook. He hopes the poor guy isn’t having too much trouble moving on.

  
  


Doctor Carrick hands Jack a cup of hot water and a small basket of sealed tea bags. “How’s the job going?”

“Great, actually,” he answers as he pulls out a bag, rips it open, and drops the paper sachet into his mug. “There’s a learning curve, but I don’t seem to be having any trouble remembering which sections of the library are for what.”

Nodding, Carrick sits down with his own cup of tea. “And how’s the head? I imagine the stable schedule is helping.”

“It is, yeah.”

“Making any friends?”

Jack nods and smirks slightly. “The robots are quite companionable. Oh, and the people are nice, too.”

Carrick chuckles and shakes his head. “And how’s the memory? Anything coming back yet?”

Smile fading, Jack looks down at his tea as it steeps and takes a breath. “No,” he lies. “Nightmares, sometimes. Dreams. But I don’t remember them when I wake up.”

  
  


The winter term ends a week or so after that, giving the ARS some much-needed downtime for Jack to go through all the book carts and file down the rough edges. He doesn’t want another one of the kids slicing their hand open on a burr or sharp corner. Thankfully, the library director hadn’t protested at all when Jack handed her a reimbursement request for a more comprehensive first aid kit after that.

Judging from the reactions of the other library employees, though, his idea of ‘comprehensive first aid kit’ is a little skewed. Maybe he should get in touch with the student EMS team on campus and schedule some sort of first aid workshop. The kids probably won’t need to know how a decompression needle works, but… better to know how and never need it, right?

  
  


As the weather warms up, Jack settles into a comfortable routine. It’s relaxing to work on the robots, and he can keep the lights adjusted to a level that doesn’t make his eyes ache. The reference librarian does tease him occasionally, calling him Hades just to see him smirk and roll his eyes.

His coworkers find it hilarious when he names the three different robots in the ARS Spot, Fido, and Barker. It gets even funnier when Barker starts actually barking whenever its guide belt gets loose. The ARS is informally renamed Cerberus, and someone even tapes up a sign on the door leading to Jack’s little domain that says THE RIVER STYX on it.

Since he’s not paying rent on his SHIELD-sponsored apartment, he orders himself some nicer work boots and better tools online. The faded calluses on his hands shift from firearms and knives to wrenches and screwdrivers.

After the fourth time his eyes glaze over as one of the ARS manufacturer’s technicians remote-sessions into Jack’s computer to debug a glitch, Jack enrolls in an introductory programming class on campus during the upcoming summer term. If nothing else, he at least wants to understand what he’s looking at.

  
  


The first day of class, he’s a little nervous; while he has his boss’s blessing to be here, he still feels out of place. He’s pretty sure the only person older than him in the classroom is the professor, and even that’s not by much. The fact that he’s literally twice the age of his classmates is made all the more apparent when he’s the only one that sits down with a notebook rather than a tablet or laptop.

He tries taking notes on his laptop the second day, but he spends the rest of the day with a splitting headache. The notebook comes back with him to the third session.

“Huh,” the girl to his left says at the end of class when they’re packing up their things. “I didn’t know people still wrote in cursive. Why not just type it?”

Jack huffs a laugh and smiles slightly. “Screens give me migraines more often than they don’t.”

Her face flits through a complicated mixture of embarrassment, sympathy, and curiosity. She blinks at him a few times, then shifts her purse around so she can stick her hand out. “I’m Cassie. Wanna be study buddies?”

“Sean,” Jack says as he shakes her hand. “And sure, thanks. I think I could probably use the help.”

  
  


Jack manages to pass the class with an A-. Sam brings donuts to Group that week in celebration.

  
  


The start of the new school year brings Cassie’s boyfriend Kevin and his roommate Ryan back to campus for their sophomore year.

Kevin eyes up Jack for a few seconds, and Jack doesn’t have to have a memory to know what that look means.

“Relax, bud,” he says, when Cassie gets up to get their lunch orders. “I’m twice your age and not even remotely interested in women.”

It takes Kevin a few more seconds to parse that, then he’s laughing. “Okay, I’m man enough to admit when I misread something. My bad.”

Ryan glances up from his calculus homework long enough to look between them, confused, then just shakes his head and goes back to studying.

By the end of the second week of the term, Jack’s officially been adopted by the trio of dorky misfits.


	3. Chapter 3

A heat wave rolls across the city at the beginning of October, bringing with it triple-digit temperatures and humidity low enough to make Jack’s skin ache. He managed to get through the summer with lightweight long sleeve hiking shirts from REI and carrying a stick of deodorant everywhere with him. It also helps that the ARS is climate controlled; Jack moves his desk inside the storage bay until the temperature drops back below ‘hellish.’

He’s not sure what to do about going to class, though. It’s usually mild enough in the mornings and evenings when he’s commuting that long sleeves aren’t a problem. But this term, his programming class starts at 1:25, and he genuinely doesn’t know how he’s going to make it to the Computer Engineering building without melting into a puddle of sweat.

He settles for stuffing one of his clean shirts into his bag and heading out early enough that he can put on some fresh deodorant and change his shirt out in the bathroom before class.

Cassie looks about as wilted as he feels when he sits down.

“Thought you hated iced coffee,” Jack teases, pulling his notebook out and digging in his bag for his pencil.

“In this weather, I’m willing to call a truce temporarily.” She picks up the sweating plastic cup and presses it against her forehead. “You’re making me get heat stroke just looking at you, man. How are you still wearing pants and long sleeves right now? Boots, too? Shit.”

“Irish skin. You either turn red like a lobster, or roast like one.”

The professor starts class before Jack gets too worried about her realizing he deflected her question.

  
  


Two days later, though, and the heat wave only gets worse. The parking lot reeks of hot tires, so Jack starts skirting around it when he’s walking between the bus stop and the library. He spends a few minutes gazing longingly at the huge swimming pool; the gym staff pulled out the lane lines and somehow managed to get their hands on deck umbrellas.

All it takes is one look in the mirror, though, and he’s reminded why that’s not an option for him. So, he spends as much time as possible indoors or in the shade, and spends most of his discretionary income on Gatorade from the cold case in the cafeteria.

Ryan blows way too much money on a huge carton of gelato and brings it to their usual lunch spot with enough spoons for everyone. Once Cassie's carved out her portion, she just puts her textbook over her face and tries to take a nap. Halfway through lunch, though, the breeze dies down and Jack finds himself absolutely _miserable._

Anxiety knots heavy in his stomach and his hands shake more than usual as he decides he’d rather deal with whatever earth-shaking consequences come from showing off his tattoos than suffer one more moment like this. He undoes the buttons on his shirt, only fumbles once or twice, then shrugs it off, trying desperately to appear nonchalant about it all. His undershirt is stuck to him in places, but it’ll dry quickly in the heat.

Cassie lifts up the textbook to stare at him.

“What?” Jack asks, and he can’t help it that it comes out a little defensively.

Kevin looks up from his phone and grimaces. “Dude, you had a shirt on _under_ that?”

That’s… not the reaction Jack was expecting. He blinks owlishly and pushes his glasses back up his nose.

“Nice ink,” Cassie says before she puts the textbook back down and, to all outward appearances, goes back to sleep.

Dragging a hand through his hair, Ryan looks up at Jack. “Any chance you know how to physics?”

“How to… what?” Jack tilts his head to the side so he can see Ryan’s homework better. “Thought you guys took kinematics in high school nowadays.”

“You’re assuming I remember high school, old man.”

Scooting around so he can sit next to Ryan, Jack laughs. “Hey, I don’t remember last Christmas, so we’re even. Let’s see if physics escaped the Swiss cheese effect.”

  
  


It doesn’t fix how he feels about the tattoos, not by a long shot. But that night, he wears short sleeves after he gets home.

  
  


Kevin spreads out his Arabic homework on the lunch table one day a few weeks later, and that’s how Jack learns he’s fluent.

That leads him to a question, then another, and another, and Jack spends the first few hours after his lunch break spiralling down a pit of fascination and mild panic when he uses his work computer to discover how many fucking languages he can read.

Really, it’s a disturbing number. And, judging by the assortment, he spent most of his deployment time in some pretty delicate parts of the world.

That night, he dreams. 

_-hands holding a grenade; he releases the lever, waits a few seconds, then lobs it under an oncoming Jeep. The driver flies out of the car, Jack tracks the path with the crosshairs on his rifle, the stock kicks back into his shoulder-_

He lays in bed on his side, panting harshly into the silence of the early morning. He’s covered in sweat and his whole body aches; even a soothing shower does nothing to help the migraine pressing at his eyes.

He ends up clocking in to work several hours early, so that he can go home early that day and rest. Judging by the look his boss gives him, he looks about like he feels.

Cassie offers to bring him some soup for lunch, in the group text.

That evening, after some quality time with his couch, a pill, and a glass of water, Jack tries to rub away the last remnants of his headache. They’ve been less frequently lately, but more severe when he gets them, and keeping a logbook hasn’t helped identify any patterns. Maybe he should schedule an appointment with the neurologist soon; he’s not due to go back until next month.

It’s a toss-up, though, whether he wants to go through the relative torture (and isn’t that a thought, because Jack has a combat record saying he _has_ been tortured) of listening to the doctor natter on about psychosomatic transient aphasia, conversion disorder, and a number of other long complicated words that make Jack’s eyeballs go numb. While it may be worth alerting the neurologist about this… ugh. Just ugh.

The pain doesn’t come back, but the postdrome, the migraine hangover, lasts _days._ Every time he tries to sleep without swallowing one of those white, grape-sized tablets that put him out like a light, he _remembers_ things.

_-frantic chatter over the radio, gravity suddenly lurching to the side as the helicopter lists. Sickening pain in his shoulder, running the mission anyway. Dull shock as he stares at the lifeless eyes of- someone. Someone important. The mission target-_

_-terror and relief as he and- and his- his Commander? As they stare down the hole carved through the bottom of the transport van. An unconscious soldier slumps to the floor on the far end. Blood, on the wall, shoulder height. There should be a second soldier, and three hostiles-_

_-staring at screens, eyelids pried open, hands restrained. A voice talks. And talks. And talks. Asks a question, and Jack can’t_ not _answer. The screens are… it’s impossible to look away. Floating, falling-_

When Jack sits down at lunch wearing sunglasses indoors and nursing a large travel mug of tea, Kevin digs into his bag for a few pieces of chocolate and pushes them over to Jack. His shoulders gradually relax over the course of the next hour, and he can’t put into words how thankful he is that these kids just let him _exist_ for a bit when he most needs it. 

  
  


Doctor Carrick has an empathetic look on his face as he writes on his notepad. “Still no luck with finding the key to the mental filing cabinet, then.”

It’s easy enough to lie about it, mask the body language tells that would give him away, and give the impression of honesty. Jack tries not to think too hard about how he knows how to do that. “I’m not sure I want to, to be honest,” he says quietly, eyes downcast. “From what _has_ come back, STRIKE’s Lieutenant Commander Rollins isn’t someone I want to get to know.”

  
  


Christmas comes and goes. It’s a quiet affair, with his college-age friends home with their families. Still, there was a gift exchange before they all left. Jack has some new tea to try, a lumpy hand-knit scarf and matching hat, and Ryan’s old boxy TV. He rings in the new year with his friends on Skype, flipping them the bird as they joke about him being an old man. They all know he can’t drink with his medications, but it’s still nice to be teased about drinking sparkling cider instead of champagne.

  
  


By the time he makes it a year in his new life, Jack’s actually considering taking some more classes and going for a degree. His file says he went to college in California the first time around, but he’ll be damned if he can remember anything from it.

Maybe that’s why there’s faded, long-healed marks from piercings on his face and ears. Apparently teenage Jack Rollins was a bit of a punk.

Still, he’s getting comfortable, his migraines are significantly better, and his SHIELD handlers are pleased with how well he’s settled in. His boss at the library is thrilled with how well the ARS is running, especially since they’ve had to call in repairs to the manufacturer all of twice in the past six months. He’s getting more comfortable during his group sessions at the VA, and his hair’s finally long enough to scrape back into a short ponytail.

He’s walking home after a long day fixing a hydraulic fluid leak on Fido; he missed the last bus and the next one’s not for another hour so he just saves himself the time and walks. There’s some leftovers in the fridge he can reheat, and his grocery shopping can wait until the weekend, so Jack just pops his collar up around his neck, stuffs his hands in his pockets, and lets himself drift as he walks the few miles back to his apartment.

When he rounds the corner, he glances up and stops dead in his tracks.

One of the windows is open.

Not wide open, just a few inches. Not even enough that most people would notice, but Jack still has vestigial habits from training he doesn’t remember. He swallows, starts walking again, and shifts his hand around in his pocket until he has it around the handle of his knife.

The Benchmade is heavy and cold in his hand, and Jack wishes half-heartedly that it was a gun instead.

He tries to keep his footsteps even and normal as he walks up the stairs to his door, and even jingles the keys a bit as he pulls them out of his other pocket. Whatever’s waiting for him, it’s had plenty of warning now. Hopefully if there’s someone inside, they’ll rabbit back out through the window before Jack has to do anything drastic.

The back of his neck itches unbearably as he turns the knob to open the door. It’s dark inside, like it usually is when he gets home this late, and (not for the first time) Jack makes a mental note to put a light on a timer for himself. He steps in, closes the door behind him, and locks it.

It’s silent in the apartment, too, but then Jack hears the barely-there _shuff_ of a shoe sliding on the carpet. He can see the whole apartment from where he’s standing, even with the meager light filtering in from the street lamps, and it takes him a fraction of a second to home in on the dense shadow next to his couch.

A heady rush of adrenaline flows through him, and he whips his arm back to throw his knife at the intruder.

The knife slams into the wall with a hollow _thok_ when the intruder sways out of the way. Jack crosses the distance between them in three huge strides, knocks the gun out of the intruder’s hand, and uses his own momentum to push the other man into the wall. He puts one forearm across the man’s neck and leans against it, not enough to cut off air but enough to make a point.

The intruder wheezes, coughs, and then _laughs._ It’s a bitter, ugly sound.

“Of all the fuckin’ faces,” he growls in a light, raspy tenor, his shark-like grin barely visible in the shadows of his hood. “Of all the _fuckin’_ faces you could have stolen, it had to be _his.”_

Jack doesn’t have time to do much more than frown in confusion before the intruder’s knee slams into his nuts. His right knee yields as it’s kicked out from under him, and Jack collapses to the ground in an untidy mess of limbs.

“Don’t suppose SHIELD would give me a pardon if I tracked down their missing Skrull, would they?” The man steps over Jack and leans down to pick up his gun, pressing it firmly against Jack’s forehead when he tries to sit up. “No, no, don’t get up on my account, really.”

“What do you want?” Jack grits out, eyes crossing as he stares at the gun barrel against his head. “Seriously, if you’re here to rob the place, just take the fuckin’ Macbook and get on with it.”

Snarling, the intruder leans in close enough that Jack can see scar tissue pulling at the skin on his face. “I want my husband back, you son of a bitch.” He flips the gun around and raises his arm with a universal, unmistakable intent.

Jack reflexively brings his own arm up to protect his head and braces himself for a blow that he _knows_ is going to hurt. Searing heat rips through his arm, then- fades. Rapidly.

Visible through several layers of clothing, Jack’s arm is _glowing._

He scrapes his sleeve up, and the white tattoos flicker like live embers. When panic rushes through him, they flash white. Jack skitters backward a few feet, staring at his hands, and it’s only when the intruder lets out a broken, choked-off sound that Jack looks up at him.

The man is sprawled in a similar position to Jack, one hand on the coffee table and his hood halfway off his head. He stares at Jack with wide, deep-set eyes just this side of bloodshot. An unruly mess of black hair covers the top of his head, and the light from the street lamp outside shines on the misshapen mess of his left ear. 

Silence stretches between them for several breaths, long enough for the chaotic swirls of light dancing over Jack’s skin to fade into a gentler, subtle glow.

“Jack?” the other man asks in a small, broken voice.

For lack of anything better to do, Jack just nods.

“They- they told me you were dead.” The man’s eyes tighten and he presses a hand to his mouth. “I saw the autopsy pictures. They told me you were _dead.”_

It’s impossible to miss the resemblance between the man in front of him, and the faces Jack drew in his notebook almost a year ago.

“Who did?” Jack asks, but a sick, sinking feeling takes hold in his stomach; he already knows what the answer’s going to be.

“SHIELD.”


	4. Chapter 4

The mug in Jack’s hands is too hot to hold comfortably, but he keeps his hands wrapped around it. It’s grounding. A physical sensation to tether him in place while everything else swirls chaotically around him.

His sleeves are pulled damn near down to his knuckles. If he can't see the tattoos, he doesn't have to deal with the fact that they fucking  _ glow. _

He gets up when the microwave beeps, though, and evenly divides the reheated leftovers between two bowls. It’s easy enough to sit back down and start poking at his food without looking at his unexpected guest; every time he makes eye contact, he feels like he’s going to faceplant into a migraine.

“You’ve been here in DC this whole time?” the man asks, fiddling with his fork.

Nodding, Jack nudges a few pieces of chicken around. “Since last March.”

The man sets his fork down, puts his elbows on the table, and puts his face in his hands. “I’m so sorry. If- if I’d known. If I knew you were alive. I would have looked, I would have found you.”

Jack manages to eat a bite or two, then leaves his fork in his bowl and leans back in his chair. There’s not much of a way to ease into it, no words to break it gently, so he just sighs and says, “I don’t remember anything before January of last year.”

The look he gets from the other man is hollow, haunted. “Nothing?”

“Fragments,” Jack admits quietly. “Flashes of sense memory, muscle memory. I know how to do an armorer’s breakdown of a CheyTac M200, and I can rig an IED out of damn near anything I can get my hands on, but I don’t remember where or when I got that training.”

“Did they…” The man’s voice is barely above a whisper. “Did you wake up in a chair? With…” He motions around his head, as if to imply something resting against his forehead and eyes.

Jack shakes his head, and the other man looks back down at the table, shoulders slumping in what almost looks like relief.

“So you don’t remember me.”

Closing his eyes, Jack swallows thickly, then shakes his head. “I’m sorry.” He’s not sure that a stale flashback and some doodles count as ‘remembering.’

“Ain’t your damn fault, Jack,” the man murmurs.

The sound of a car driving by on the street below fills the silence between them, but only for a moment.

Jack pulls his bowl back toward himself and starts eating again; he needs to get something in his stomach before he takes his meds for the evening. The intruder-turned-guest doesn’t do much more than poke at his food, though. And realistically, Jack can’t blame him. However they managed to fake Jack’s death convincingly enough for an autopsy, it’s clearly rattled the man sitting across from him.

On the one hand, Jack has a fair idea of who’s sitting across from him, and exactly how dangerous this man truly is. On the other, though… he’s probably one of the only people Jack can trust to actually be honest with him.

“Who was I?” he asks, and the other man’s eyes snap up to his. “Who was I, before?”

The man’s mouth moves a few times like he’s trying to form words and gives up every time. Finally, his eyes fall back down to the table and he takes a breath that isn’t as deep as it seems like it should be. “The best man I ever knew.” He swallows, and closes his eyes. “Not a perfect soldier. Hell, none of us were. But you were the best man of any of us.”

Jack gets goosebumps from that, and he’s not sure why. “Tell me your name? It… I don’t know. But it might help bring something back.”

“Brock,” is the ragged response, as if the words are catching in the man’s throat. “Brock Rumlow. I’m your-”

Jack doesn’t hear the last few words, because the world tilts sideways as his brain decides yes, now,  _ now _ is a  _ great _ time to forget how to function.

_ -in the showers, laughing but pushing him away because what if someone sees- _

_ -have and to hold, for richer or- _

_ -sharp pain in his jaw, blood in his eyes, he can’t see who’s holding his face in place on his skull. A harsh bark: “Where’s the fucking medic?!” He tries to speak and- _

_ -technician goes flying across the vault, and Jack has his sights on the head of the Asset before the technician hits the wall. Stories and nightmares, the First of HYDRA, the ghost of the past; none of that prepared Jack for what he’s seeing. It’s a small reassurance that Brock looks just as disturbed when Pierce leads him into the vault for the first- _

_ -the man looks tired, overworked, and like he spends too much time in the gym. The tip of a knife tattoo pokes out from the cuff of his sleeve, and he carries himself like a career soldier. “Rumlow,” is offered along with a hand. Jack shakes it, gives his own name in return, then follows Rumlow into the- _

_ -a frantic, almost painful kiss. “Don’t you die on me, Jack. Don’t you fucking die on me today.” Brock presses their foreheads together. “I don’t care if you have to kill Pierce himself. Don’t you die-” _

When Jack finally resurfaces from the migraine fog, early morning sunlight filters through the slats in the blinds next to his bed. He groans quietly and rubs his eyes with one hand, then notices that he’s still wearing the same shirt he was yesterday.

“Didn’t wanna make any assumptions,” drifts across the apartment.

Jack pushes himself up on one elbow and looks toward the couch; Brock - holy shit that’s  _ Brock _ \- is sprawled out with his gun in one hand and Jack’s knife in the other. He must have dragged the couch a few feet to the left sometime during the night, for better sight lines. 

“...you kept watch.”

Sitting up, Brock shrugs. He sets the gun and knife down on the coffee table and drags his fingers through his hair; it sticks up in uneven clumps that tell Jack it’s been a long time since it was properly washed. “It’s not like I got a better place to be, and… you weren’t doing so hot.”

Jack winces and rubs his forehead, patting around for his glasses with his other hand. “Migraine, probably.” He can’t remember whether he took his meds last night; it takes some doing since he’s still somewhat uncoordinated, but he makes his way into the bathroom to check the pill organizer. No wonder his head’s still fuzzy, though, because last night’s prescriptions sit accusingly in their little block of the organizer.

Hopefully missing a dose won’t mess with him as much as it has in the past. Even so, he pulls out his phone and fires off quick texts to his boss and his on-campus friends to let them know he’s staying home sick today. After a moment’s hesitation, he sends one to Sam as well letting him know he won’t be at Group tonight.

Only after he’s locked his phone and set it back down does he realize that, over a year ago, he subconsciously chose Brock’s birthday for his passcode.

Well. If that’s the confirmation he needs that he’s not crazy and the surreal deja vu that’s been plaguing him for over a year isn’t just brain static, then there it is.

Jack puts his hands flat on the bathroom counter on either side of the sink and just… breathes for a bit.

Footsteps scuff on the carpet as Brock walks toward the bathroom; Jack knows instinctively that Brock can move as silently as a ghost, and he’s making noise now for Jack’s benefit. “Sweetheart?”

“I hate this,” Jack mumbles, and turns to sit down on the toilet with his head in his hands. Brock walks in and stiffly crouches next to him, one hand resting on Jack’s knee. “I have a life here. I- I started over. I have friends. I’m going to  _ school. _ And I just-” Swallowing, Jack closes his eyes. His throat’s already starting to ache. “I hate the fact that my memory’s fucked. And I hate the fact that I’m not sure I  _ want _ to get it back.”

Brock gently pulls Jack’s hands into his own and tries to smile, but the scar tissue pulls it into the wrong shape. He wraps his fingers around Jack’s and brings their hands to his lips. The contrast between their hands is stark; even burned and scarred, Brock’s skin is still far less pale than Jack’s, and the block, sturdy shape of his fingers make Jack’s hands look oddly delicate for how much larger they are.

It’s hard to ignore the way that a subtle flicker passes through the markings around Jack’s wrists where Brock is touching him.

“Who are you running from?” Jack asks, barely above a whisper.

Brock closes his eyes and takes a breath. “HYDRA’s liquidating compromised assets. I’m… one of the only…” He bows his head so his forehead rests on their hands. “They gave me a serum, years ago. It’s the only reason I survived the helicarrier crash. I’m one of three viable lab rats left, and the other two are Cap and the Asset.”

Hesitantly, Jack pulls his hand free and cups Brock’s jaw, stroking his thumb over the ripples of scars over a sharp cheekbone. “Why not go to SHIELD?”

“You think they wouldn’t stick me in a cage to rot?” Brock laughs, low and bitter. “They had to put you through six weeks of Faustus to make you comply. I did what I did with open eyes.”

Jack brushes his thumb over Brock’s cheekbone again. “I can get you in touch with Captain Rogers, he can-”

“Rogers would sooner put a bullet in my brain than help me, Jack, and I’m not sure I would stop him.”

Something breaks a little in Jack’s heart when he hears that. “So you’re just going to sleep on the streets and run for the rest of your life?”

Shrugging with deliberate nonchalance, Brock looks away. “It’s either that or chase down every bastard who made me into what I am and kill ‘em, but I’m…” He grits his teeth and shakes his head.

Jack gently pulls Brock’s head back around to look at him. “And these are your only two options?”

“Jack, I know enough about how all this works to know you’re on a conditional release. They find out you’re harboring a federal fugitive-”

“Didn’t you know?” Jack raises an eyebrow and a smirk starts to tug at his lips. “I lost my memory. How am I supposed to know you’re a fugitive? For all I know, you’re just one of the guys I used to serve with that needs a couch to surf on for a bit.”

Brock stares at him for several seconds, then laughs wetly. “You reckless sonuvabitch.” He gives Jack’s hands a squeeze, then stands. “You okay if I use your shower? And… I could go for a change of clothes.”

Nodding, Jack slips past Brock and starts digging through his dresser. When he comes back, Brock’s already pulled off his shirt and he’s working on the button of his pants, back turned to the door. Jack’s vision flickers with a memory of Brock in the locker room, strong back and whipcord muscles on display, but the man standing in front of him is thin enough that Jack could slot his fingers between his ribs.

Brock’s shoulders drop fractionally and his head bobs as he half-turns to look at Jack. “It’s a little hard to get enough calories when you’re on the run.”

“Especially with that serum in your blood,” Jack murmurs, and sets the clothes on the bathroom counter. “I’ll make breakfast, I need to eat before I take my meds anyway.”

Nodding, Brock steps out of the rest of his clothes and slides back the shower curtain.

  
  


“Is this for your migraines?” After they’ve eaten and Jack is swallowing down his meds, Brock picks up one of the pills from tomorrow morning’s block in the organizer.

Jack hums an  _ mmhm _ as he takes another drink of water to wash the pills down. “Although I missed last night’s dose so today might be dicey.”

As he turns the tablet over, Brock suddenly goes very still and his eyes widen. “Jack…”

“Hm?”

“This is from BeneTech. Didn’t they tell you what WL-HOPE is for?”

Scooping another tablet out of the organizer, Jack looks at the letters stamped into it. “Said it was some sort of new treatment fresh on the market and I’m an ideal candidate for it.”

“It’s not migraine drugs, Jack, it’s the mutant cure. They’ve been disabling your gifts and lying to you about it.”

Jack looks down at the markings on his arm, which still flicker faintly. “...mutant.”

“You’re an Alpha Class mutant,” Brock tells him, setting the tablet down and reaching out to wrap his hands around Jack’s. “And your gifts have saved so many lives.”

As Jack’s body absorbs the medication, the lights dancing under his skin slowly fade. He feels unmoored, lost, and a little bit sick. “How many did they take, though?”

“Jack-”

“I was a soldier. I was on STRIKE. We were a black ops team, Brock. How many times did SHIELD and HYDRA use my- my  _ gifts _ to do their dirty work?”

“They didn’t,” Brock growls. “They didn’t because until they had you unconscious and defenseless and alone, they didn’t  _ know.” _

“How could they possibly not know?  _ Look _ at me! I’m a-”

Standing, Brock leaned over the table, hands flat on either side of Jack’s empty plate. “If you call yourself a  _ freak, _ Rollins, I swear to whatever fuckin’ God still exists-”

Brock doesn’t get to finish his threat because the words die in his throat when the doorbell rings.

“Hello, boys.” The voice is muffled through the door, female, the teasing side of sultry, and makes Brock’s face lose what little color is left in it. “You have ten seconds to let us in before the Big Bad Captain huffs and puffs and kicks the door down.”

Standing slowly, Jack sees the anger drain out of Brock to be replaced with eerie, hyper-aware stillness. Brock takes a breath, eyes locked on Jack’s, then reaches out and grabs the front of his shirt to pull him into a kiss.

It’s not a magical curse-breaking thing, or even all that pleasant. It’s mostly teeth and dry, chapped lips, with a sort of frantic energy that has Jack spinning back to the early hours before the Insight launch. Brock rests his forehead against Jack’s, eyes still closed, and exhales.

“Just… had to do that one more time,” he murmurs. “Just in case it’s the last one we ever get.” With a slight push, he directs Jack toward the door. “Don’t keep Romanoff waiting.”


	5. Chapter 5

Once Jack lets the two Avengers into his apartment, he closes the door behind them, then walks into the kitchen and gathers up the breakfast dishes.

“Well, you’ve seen better days,” Romanoff says with a smirk as she walks up to Brock and impersonally frisks and disarms him.

Scoffing, Brock laces his fingers together behind his head while she does that. “I think I look pretty good, all things considered.”

“Nice to know SHIELD still has my apartment bugged,” Jack mutters irritably as he starts the sink running and picks up the dish sponge.

“They don’t.” Rogers has his arms crossed and one hip resting against the half-wall between the main door and Jack’s bed. “But she does.” He’s fixed Jack with a piercing stare that makes the hair on the back of Jack’s neck stand up the same way it would if he was facing down an angry grizzly bear.

Brock walks over to lean against the kitchen counter next to Jack, hands on the edge of the counter on either side of him. “Meant it when I said it wasn’t personal, Cap.”

“I’m finding that a little hard to believe, given how much STRIKE had to do with Bucky’s treatment in the hands of HYDRA.”

“We didn’t have  _ anything _ to do with that,” Brock growls.

“Prove it.”

The tap’s finally spitting out hot water, so Jack soaps up the sponge and starts scrubbing. “I’m not sure we can, Rogers. My memory’s unreliable, and it’s not likely you’d trust anything he says.”

“Fine.” Rogers narrows his eyes. “Then tell me why, Rumlow.”

“Why, what? Use your words, big guy.”

Closing his eyes, Jack sighs.

There’s a long enough pause, tense and charged, that Jack’s able to finish washing the dishes. He arranges everything in the drying rack, then moves around Brock to open the fridge and start updating his grocery list. They can come into his apartment and fuck up his day all they want, but they’re not going to stop Jack from trying to maintain a semblance of being a functional adult.

When Brock finally answers, it’s barely above a whisper. “A man in an expensive suit sits down across from a disillusioned, drunk ex-Ranger who’s the only man in his platoon that survived deployment to Panama and offers him a chance to make a difference, call the shots and keep his men alive? You bet your ass I said yes.”

He looks up at Rogers, and it’s probably only because Jack’s standing just a few feet away from him that he notices the tension in Brock’s eyes. “They manipulated me. Got into my head and twisted shit around, made me think what they wanted me to. And you know what? I knew they were doin’ it, and I didn’t care. I got to build a team of the best and brightest the world had to offer. They gave me a chance to become better, faster, stronger, and I volunteered before they finished asking. They gave me the tools and the men to change the fuckin’  _ world.  _ They took a powerless, angry kid and they gave me a  _ purpose  _ again.”

Judging by the unsettled look on Rogers’ face, Brock’s words are hitting a little too close to home.

“And you know what? I have  _ exactly _ the kind of shit-ass luck that gets me the highest performing operator SHIELD’s ever seen on my team, and then has me  _ fall _ for the goddamn punk.”

Jack’s lips twitch in an uncertain smile because he has a feeling he knows who Brock’s talking about.

“I got cocky,” Brock continues, eyes fixed on Rogers. “And I took a chance. Pierce found out, and he- he had our own team drag Jack down to the sublevels and- and  _ torture _ him within an inch of his life. Six weeks of torture, brainwashing, and conditioning. Pierce brought him back to me at the end of it, and made it out like he was givin’ me a  _ gift.  _ A reward for my compliance.”

Brock’s hand reaches out and blindly latches on to the first part of Jack he can reach: his elbow. “He thought he had himself a loyalist. And he did, until he took the only good thing I’ve ever had and  _ broke _ it.

“And then that day, in the bank vault, he brought me downstairs. Had me follow him as his bodyguard. And Jack and his squad, they’re already down there with their sights on Bucky fucking  _ Barnes.” _

“You knew,” Rogers growls, taking a step forward before Romanoff stops him with a hand on his chest. “You knew who he was and you let them-”

Brock bares his teeth and his hand tightens on Jack’s arm. “I found out who he was the same time you did! And I saw my  _ husband _ pointing a  _ gun _ at his head!”

Eyes wide in surprise, Romanoff looks between Brock and Jack. “Husband, huh.”

Jack closes his eyes and turns so he can pull Brock into his arms, and Brock’s hands cling to the fabric of Jack’s shirt as if he’s afraid to let go.

“Go into the bathroom,” Brock rasps, forehead resting on Jack’s shoulder. “In the medicine cabinet. Look at his prescriptions, and tell me what you see.”

Several seconds pass before Romanoff pads over to the bathroom. She comes back with four orange bottles in her hands, and passes them off to Rogers one at a time. “Ibuprofen, duloxetine, that’s an antidepressant… this one’s another as-needed for vertigo, and- oh.”

“Oh?”

“It’s the Hope Serum. I didn’t know they’d formulated it into tablets. Honestly, I assumed it got shut down, but I learned my lesson about making assumptions last year.”

The small bottle rattles as Rogers takes it and reads the label.

“We hid it,” Jack says, slow and quiet, eyebrows furrowed. The memory is just starting to worm its way through the wall in his head, unraveling in real time. “My… powers. I could… mask it, before. Hide my markings. Make myself appear baseline.”

Brock nods against his shoulder and clings to him a little more tightly.

“And when you had your head injury…” Rogers begins, then trails off, frowning at the pill bottle.

Romanoff smirks at Jack. “Sorry.” It’s clear by her tone that she’s not. When Rogers gives her a confused look, she shrugs. “He came at me with a gun when Pierce was trying to launch Insight, so I set him up on a blind date with the conference table.”

“Cognitive recalibration,” Brock mumbles, and shakes his head. “Should’ve known that’s all it took.”

Looking up at Jack, Rogers holds up the pill bottle. “I think I’m gonna go knock on a few doors. Maybe even knock ‘em down if I have to. Is it okay if I take this with me?”

Jack swallows, looks at the bottle, then looks down at his lace-patterned arms where they’re wrapped around Brock. The ethereal glow is gone again, overpowered by the chemicals in his bloodstream, but… now that he’s seen them, he feels… incomplete. Like there’s holes in more than just his memory. His skin feels cold without the warmth of whatever energy was swirling around in his tattoos.

Pulling away just enough to look up at Jack, Brock studies him carefully. Brown eyes flick back and forth between Jack’s, hope warring with guilt on his face.

Jack nods, Rogers pockets the pill bottle, and Brock closes his eyes before tucking his head back into Jack’s neck.

“Don’t try to look for my bugs,” Romanoff tells them as she turns to leave. “You won’t find them. Oh, and...” She looks over her shoulder as she stands in the doorway. “Don’t leave town.”

The click of the latch makes Jack startle a bit, even though he sees the door close.

Brock leans into him and lets out something that might be a laugh if it weren’t so strained and sharp. “Jesus  _ fuck.” _

Curling his fingers into Brock’s still-damp hair, Jack closes his eyes. “That went better than it could have.”

“Understatement of the fuckin’  _ century,  _ holy shit.”

Jack pulls away just enough that he can look at Brock, properly  _ look _ at him. Sure, they’ve both been through hell and back, and looking a bit worse for the wear in some ways, but somehow, something brought them back together. And even though Jack knows he’s looking at one of the deadliest operators SHIELD’s ever seen, it’s oddly endearing to see his hair all fluffed up from the shower and how even now, Jack’s clothes are still too big for him.

Brock meets his eye, then gives Jack a mirthless half-smile and looks away. “Stop staring.”

“Just thinking about how we match, now.”

“How’s that?”

The difference in height between them is only a handful of inches, maybe four, but it’s still easy enough for Jack to kiss Brock’s forehead. “Two skinny ex-soldiers who hate wearing short-sleeve shirts in public.”

Huffing out a quiet laugh, Brock lets his shoulders drop. “I hate  _ being _ in public. I used to be able to be invisible. Now I get stared at unless I dress like a goddamn hobo. And even  _ then.” _

“Let’s not worry about that right now.”

Brock’s stomach gurgles, quietly the first time, then more insistently the second.

“Christ, already?”

He nods and gives Jack an embarrassed smile. “Serum means I need almost four thou a day to maintain fighting weight.”

_ -only thing open this late is Denny’s, but the guys are starving. Half of them haven’t even bothered to change out of their fatigues. Jack’s just hoping they won’t get turned away. One hour later, one squadron fed on Brock’s SHIELD credit card, and Brock is still finishing off the last bits of everyone’s plates. He’s a bottomless pit with hollow legs and never seems to put on any body fat- _

Shuffling them to the side just enough that he can reach the pen hanging from his grocery pad, Jack jots down  _ protein drinks _ on the first empty line on the list. “I’ll hit the store this afternoon, provided my eyes let me leave the apartment without waging war on my frontal lobe again.”

Brock mumbles his thanks and leans back into Jack. He seems more exhausted at this point than anything else, so Jack gently herds him over to the bed and gets them both laying down. The groan that Brock lets out is worth it as he stretches out on the mattress; his shoulder pops as he pulls his arms above his head. A nap will probably do them both a world of good right now; they always help whenever Jack’s head is getting spastic.

Hesitantly, Jack scoots up against him, curling around him with an arm over his chest. “So… that kiss earlier.”

“God, sorry. Tell me to fuck off if that was outta line.”

“Eh…” Jack props himself up on an elbow and pulls his glasses off, then sets them on the nightstand. “I was actually gonna ask if you wanted to try again. Y’know, make sure that’s not the only one I can remember.”

Brock blinks owlishly at him a few times. “You sure?”

“Gotta give Romanoff  _ something _ to listen to if she insists on keeping my place bugged, right?”

“You-” Brock pokes him in the nose. “-are a massive troll.” The smile slides off his face fairly quickly, though, and he looks at his hands before dropping them to his chest and closing his eyes. “I don’t look like I did when you married me.”

“Yeah, well, neither do I.” Jack takes that opportunity to lean down, closing his eyes as he does. They don’t end up taking a nap for a while.

  
  


Jack goes back to work the next day, after Brock manages to guess his laptop’s password  _ and _ log in to his Netflix account. Around 11am, he gets a text from an unregistered number, and all it contains is an eggplant emoji, a brick, and a green check mark.

Squinting at that for nearly a minute doesn’t make the colorful modern hieroglyphics resolve into anything Jack can understand, so he just drops his phone back into his pocket and heads off to class.

  
  


“Yo dawg, I heard you like data structures,” Cassie grumbles as they walk out of the classroom. She tugs her hat down over her ears more firmly and decides to velcro herself to Jack’s side as the chilly February air greets them. 

Jack’s about to snark the rest of the meme back at her when he looks up and stops dead in his tracks.

Leaning against a nearby column with an overstuffed Subway bag hanging off one arm, is Brock. The skin on his face is smooth and clean-shaven, and with the weight he’s lost, he looks closer to Jack’s age than his own. He’s tapping away at his phone, one of the new models from Samsung, and looks up when the students start filing out of the classroom.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Brock says with a wide smile, and walks toward Jack. “I think I got enough sandwiches for everyone.”

Cassie looks between them, mouth hanging open, then playfully slaps Jack’s chest. “You didn’t say you had a  _ boyfriend.” _

“I- I… don’t.” It takes a few blinks for Jack’s brain to reboot, and Brock stands there smirking at him the whole damn time. “We’re married, actually.”

“Damn straight,” Brock says and steps forward to give Jack a quick kiss before turning to Cassie. “Fred Kruger, nice to meet you.”

It takes all of Jack’s willpower not to burst out laughing at the cover name, but that fails him the instant Cassie starts slapping his chest repeatedly.

“How could you have a  _ husband _ and you didn’t  _ tell us  _ you  _ complete tool-” _

Trying desperately to not laugh until he pisses himself, Jack gently catches Cassie’s wrists and rolls his eyes. “He just got back from deployment, apparently.”

“Yep.” Brock grins and sidles up to slide an arm around Jack’s waist. “And for the next thirty days, I’m a free man again. Oh, by the way…” He digs his dog tags out from under his shirt, pops the chain, and pulls off a ring; that’s when Jack notices Brock’s already wearing his own. “Hell of a good luck charm, but I think you want it back now.”

  
  


Brock pulls off his jacket once they claim a table in the cafeteria, and Kevin noticeably goggles at the webbed burn scars covering Brock’s hands and arms.

“Battle scars, baby,” Brock says, then pops the top on a can of soda. “The ladies love ‘em.”

Rolling his eyes, Jack plants his hand on the side of Brock’s face and shoves him away. The kids, predictably, love this.

  
  


That evening, Brock shows Jack a book-sized case with NANO MASK debossed into the lid. “Romanoff brought it by this morning after you caught the bus,” he says, then taps twice in front of his ear and the mask deactivates. It takes him a few seconds to pull the flexible mesh off his face, then he carefully folds it and sets it back in its case. “She’d already programmed in my face from… before.”

Jack reaches out and presses his hand to Brock’s cheek. “What’s the catch?”

“They want me -  _ us _ \- to be double agents again. For them. Help them take down crime rings. Use our contacts from HYDRA to take ‘em down for good. Callsigns Crossbones and Lucky, just like on STRIKE.”

Closing his eyes, Jack shakes his head. “I have a life here. I- I can’t-”

“I told her that,” Brock murmurs, leaning into Jack’s hand. “And, for once, she actually agreed to respect it.” He steps closer and wraps his arms around Jack’s chest. “You really did build a new life for yourself, sweetheart. I’m a soldier, though. I always was, and I always will be.”

“So you’re gonna do it.”

Brock nods. “But… if you’ll have me… I think I’d like to come back here between missions.”

“Might have to get a bigger place.” Jack smiles, a little lopsided, and bumps their noses together. “And you’re going to have to chip in for rent. I’m pretty sure SHIELD’s going to stop subsidizing it once Cap’s done lighting a fire under their asses over the pills.”

“Jack, I will buy you a goddamned house if it means we get to have a place to call home.”

Putting his hands on either side of Brock’s face, Jack traces his thumbs over his cheekbones and takes a moment to marvel at the orange-white flicker that flows through his tattoos. “With a white picket fence and our obligatory three dogs.”

Brock chuckles and nods. “Deal. Now shut up and kiss me.”

**Author's Note:**

> So, there’s basically no universities near Washington, D.C. that publicly advertise the fact that they have an automated book retrieval system. Artistic license! *jazz hands*


End file.
